Just as there’s no such thing as an ex-Marine, once you’re a Merry Prankster, you’re always a Merry Prankster, just ask Ken Babbs.
An interview with Babbs — the veteran storyteller and adventure finder — was featured on the Jan. 15 edition of Greasy Tracks where he discussed his just-published Cronies, A Burlesque: Adventures with Ken Kesey, Neal Cassady, the Merry Pranksters and the Grateful Dead (Tsunami Press).
The program also included a wide range of music with “blues” in the title as well as a handful of tracks featuring Mick Taylor who turns 73 on Jan. 17.
Check out the archive by clicking here for an archive, while a playlist is here.
Babbs first met Ken Kesey in 1958 at a cocktail party hosted by Wallace Stegner who founded the creative writing program at Stanford University which Babbs was attending on a Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship. They became fast friends/cronies and for the next 40-plus years shared experiences that a determined Babbs captured in 70 “burlesques” or “chapbooks” in the hardcover.